Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (The Hungry Student)

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (The Hungry Student)

by SuketuMehta (Author)

Synopsis

Bombay's story, told through the lives, often desperately near the edge, of some of the people who live there. The complex texture of these extraordinary tales is threaded together by Suketu Mehta's own history of growing up in Bombay and returning to live there after a 21-year absence. Hitmen, dancing girls, cops, movie stars, poets, beggars and politicians - Suketu looked at the city through their eyes, and in looking found the city within himself.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 498
Edition: New
Publisher: Review
Published: 07 Feb 2005

ISBN 10: 0747221596
ISBN 13: 9780747221593
Prizes: Winner of Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize - Non-Fiction 2005. Shortlisted for Guardian First Book Award 2005 and Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2005.

Media Reviews
'Mehta delivers a fresh and mesmerising look at contemporary Bombay.' Buzz! -- Buzz! 'In Suketu Mehta [Bombay] has found a biographer fully worthy of its vitality, its monstrousness and its Byzantine complexity. Destined to become a classic of its kind...like the best of novels, it transcends geographical and historical particularities to become a startlingly life-affirming portrait of humanity itself.' Daily Mail 08/04/2005 -- Daily Mail 20050408 'Reveals stories of exceptional depth and interest... a substantial achievement' -- The Sunday Times (Patrick French) 20050227 'Mehta's tales... read like a modern Arabian Nights, only crueller, more poignant, more real... MAXIMUM CITY is a tour de force' -- The Times 20050205 'Suketu Mehta writes ... with the observant eye of a journalist and the colour and energy of a novelist... He takes his time and he does it brilliantly. No one will try to write another portrait of Bombay for a very long time' -- Hampstead & Highgate Express 20050205 'Compulsively readable... the best non-fiction book on India in a couple of decades' -- FT magazine 20050226 'Reveals a melting pot of punchy, tangible characters... a gripping portrait of life in the hopeful city that hits you like the first burning blast of India's air' -- Observer 20050227 'Mehta's primary interest is in capturing the city as he experienced it during his stay... he records the moment with perfect clarity' -- Daily Telegraph 20050227 'A compelling, funny, poignant debut... he places his enthusiastic and intrepid self at the centre of his narrative and weaves a squalid, glittering, courageous, spectacular, grotesque, redemptive tapesty' -- Observer 20050130 'Remarkable... In these pages, densely packed with facts, observations, vignettes and insights, he brings the city alive with love, longing and sadness' -- Independent (Salil Tripathi) 20050204 'The reader is alternately horrified, dazzled and overwhelmed... This is a magnificent work, which has ' epic written all over it' -- Northern Echo 18991230 'Bombay deserves a big bustling book and this is it... Any suspicion of voyeurism or gossip is handsomely refuted by Mehta's candour as an observer and his considerable virtuosity as a writer' Literary Review 01/04/2005 -- Literary Review 20050401 'This isn't just a history of Bombay, it's a tell-all biography, an undercover investigation and a personal odyssey. Mehta doesn't just interview people, he Louis-Therouxs them. .. For sheer richness and vitality it's closer to a Rushdie novel than the text most will compare it to - Naipaul's India: A million Mutinies now ' Time Out, May 11-18 2005 -- Time Out London 20050511 ...unquestionably one of the most memorable non-fiction books to come out of India for many years, and there is little question that it will become the classic study of Bombay.' -- William Dalrymple 'MAXIMUM CITY is part nightmare and part millennial hallucination... Suketu Mehta has taken travel writing to an entirely new level. This is a gripping, compellingly readable account of a love affair with a city: I couldn't put it down ' -- Amitav Ghosh 'one of the best books to travel to India with.' -- Observer
Author Bio
Suketu Mehta was born in Calcutta in 1963, and after doing a post-graduate degree at Iowa now lives in New York. His work has appeared in the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, HARPER'S, THE NEW YORKER and GRANTA.